First Impressions of Warhammer Online – Part 4: Audio

The previous piece discussed that WAR certainly has an excellent look to it, but how does it sound?

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Gaming Music Directors Discover the Ultimate Gadget: A Symphony

The music is very enjoyable. It has a grand symphonic quality that lends itself well to the epic nature of the conflict at hand. Music is themed by race and has the right feel for that group’s areas and attitude. The music varies often enough based on your area and activity that it doesn’t wear itself out immediately; a big plus for those extended gaming sessions. Obviously after a true marathon it can be less than novel… but it holds up pretty well if you break it up with exclamations from teammates wandering where they shouldn’t and lamenting their fate.

The quality of the music is obviously due in large part to getting the internationally-renowned Prague Symphony Orchestra to participate in its recording. Mythic put a video of a recording session here. Though LOTRO got me thinking about upgrading to real speakers, suspecting what I am missing in WAR might get me to pull the trigger.

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Effects and Voice

Combat effects are par for the course. Stuff thwacks, explodes, zaps, and so on, with appropriate, though not all that impressive ferocity.

Voicing is good, but like most RPGs and all MMOs it gets repetitive. There just aren’t enough snippets of different voices to go around. Eventually each race has a male and female voice, and is largely represented by this pair. The good news is that some of the stuff that comes out of their mouths is pretty funny. Some of my personal favourites are the interjections your own character makes when getting beat-up. I would give examples but the language is a tinge blue for my writing, but I do chuckle when I hear them.

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Overall

The Audio gear attached to my computer is pretty ho-hum; a pair of 12V speakers is plugged into the mini add-in card that comes with an ASUS P5N32-E SLI mother board. I also run voice chat software while in game which obviously interferes with the attention given to the game’s sound. All the same, some elements stand out so well that they can be noticed as long as you have them at an at least audible level.

The quality and racial zoning of the music contribute immensely to the atmosphere of each race as well as the larger conflict. The dialogue is also appropriate and often humorous. We look at the dialogue as part of the Plot and Writing in the next piece.